VA head defends staff in controversy over response to race riots

Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie testifies during a hearing of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs on Sept. 26, 2018. On Thursday, he defended senior staffers accused of muting an internal response to white nationalism in the wake of the 2017 Charlottesville, Va., riots. (Alex Brandon/AP)

Wilkie called the issue “one that falls on the previous management” and said that in the five months since he has taken over the department, he has focused on moving past the tumult of the department’s leadership shakeup earlier this year.

“When I started, one of the first directives I took was on inclusion and equal opportunity, same thing as when I worked at the Pentagon,” he said at a telehealth event on Thursday morning. “I wouldn’t have anyone on the team who wasn’t dedicated to that.”

The painting was removed after a Washington Post story earlier this week detailing employee complaints about the racial issues it was causing.

By: Leo Shane III

The Post report included email exchanges between Georgia Coffey, then a senior executive at VA overseeing diversity issues, and John Ullyot, VA’s top communications official, in the wake of the August 2017 riots in Charlottesville.

In the days that followed, President Donald Trump said there was “blame on both sides” for the violence, prompting questions about his attitude towards white nationalism. The VA secretary at the time, David Shulkin, condemned the incident and added that “we know that staying silent on these issues is simply not acceptable.”

Coffey at the time pushed for a forceful condemnation from senior VA leadership to the violence. Ullyot advised for a more muted statement and said employees were to “keep their personal views on the Charlottesville issue out of official VA communications.” Officials say that directive came from Shulkin, and was not designed to prevent employees from speaking out against racist activities.

In the email exchange, Ullyot backed Coffey’s plans to remind VA employees of the importance of diversity and inclusion but offered other edits to minimize what he saw as personal views encroaching on an official department statement. She rejected that approach.

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Coffey eventually posted her statement on a VA site, only to have it removed by leadership shortly thereafter. She resigned from the department a few weeks later.

VA officials told the Washington Post the issue was not one of diversity but one of department messaging and insubordination. Wilkie offered support for Ullyot on Thursday, calling him “a dedicated public servant” and adding “I don’t know the full story of what Dr. Shulkin ordered or didn’t order.”

Just two months into his tenure leading VA, the new secretary promised significant culture changes for the department.

By: Leo Shane III

The incident is the latest in a series of racially tinged controversies for the department and the Trump administration. In October, federal union officials demanded an investigation after a separate Washington Post report uncovered a senior VA official who prominently displayed a picture of a Ku Klux Klan leader in his office.

VA’s Office on Diversity and Inclusion has been without a permanent head since early this year, when the former head, John Fuller, retired amid concerns with the administration’s approach to the topic.